cep Faculty visit. Dr. Cindy Okolo, Special Education Assignments Public Intellectual 3 Discussion RPD working groups

assignments Faculty visit – Dr. Rand Spiro, EPET Read & Annotate Spiro, R. J., & DeSchryver (2009). Constructivism: When it’s the wrong idea and when it’s the only idea Read both - Annotate one Spiro, R. J. (2006). The new Gutenberg revolution. What does it mean o be "post- Gutenbergian" and why doesn't Wikipedia qualify? Spiro, R. J. (2011). The new Gutenberg revolution. Google is going to make us smarter...but first we have a job to do.

faculty visit Dr. Cindy Okolo, Special Education

public intellectual 3 In 30 seconds, describe an interesting connection between your “home” experience and something discussed by Dr. Okolo?

discussion What are interesting connections between your “home” experience and the Special Education topics discussed by Dr. Okolo?

rdp working groups Autism MQM – seeing MQM issues Motivation

okolo notes Qualities - ideographic approach – focus on individuals - clinical – informed, human centered - serving

okolo notes Intellectual roots of SpEd - behaviorism - Direct Instruction – explicit, small steps, reduce errors, emphasis on generalization, scaffolding - Precision Teaching – carefully measure Ss performance, fluency (less cognitive load) - Cognitive Development – cog devel not qualitatively different, strategies can improve performance - Learning modalities & styles, but ATI are rare - Dan Willingham – learning styles don’t exist (video), most learning is meaning based

okolo notes Intellectual roots of SpEd - Learning Strategies, self-regulation, strategy Universal Design for Learning (UDL) - design enables all learners (visitors) - roots in architecture

okolo notes Practices and Beliefs about Disabilities -Medical model (diagnosis, focus on deficiency within person, fix) - Social construction (no such thing as a disability separable from social context). Sarason – 6 hour retarded child (only while in school. Modify the context, disability disappears.) - Dispedagogia (victim of bad teaching) - No Child Left Behind (every child will meet high standards, change distribution on a measure, but not really possible with a sound measure) -

okolo notes Prevalence - SpEd Ss has stayed consistent for decades - but shift in categories – ASD up; LD, CD, & LD down

okolo notes Where are we now? - LD overidentification - NICHD studies (early reading research, phonemic/phonological awareness is foundational, teaching these skills can keep Ss out of SpEd) - Curriculum-based measurement - Universal screening - Assessment rooted curriculum - Standard tasks for assessment (e.g., reading fluency, DIBELS) -Evidence based Practice -Response to Intervention

okolo notes Response To Intervention -mostly literacy, elementary Ss, LD -but has taken over SpEd discussion - intervene early, don’t wait to fail - Discrepancy models don’t work (IQ and achievement difference) - RTI is better approach - Multi-tiered - continuous assessment & monitoring

okolo notes Unresolved Issues - RTI not focused on individuals, one-size fits all, lost touch with the clinical, ideographic roots (IDEA group) - What’s so special about Special Ed. No clear evidence that SpEd works. Instead, SpEd and GenEd need to be combined (NCLB group) - RTI is a diversion of funds. RTI takes funding away from individuals and schools - Not clear that RTI works